Finished back patch!

Quote from Welcome to Nightvale

Hey, happy Earth Day! Who wants to talk about climate change?

Yeah, okay, fair, I kinda figured the answer to that would be "ugh do we have to?" What if I told you I have good news though? Good news with caveats, but still good news.

What if I told you that since the Paris Agreement in 2015, we've avoided a whole degree celsius of global warming by 2100, or maybe more?

Current projections are 2.7C, which is way better than the 3-5C (with a median of 3.7C) we were expecting in 2015. It's not where we want to be - 1.5C - but it is big, noticeable progress!

And it's not like we either hit 1.5C and avoid all the big scary consequences or fail to hit 1.5C and get all of them - every tenth of a degree of warming we avoid is going to prevent more severe problems like extreme weather, sea level rise, etc.

This means that climate change mitigation efforts are having a noticeable impact! This means a dramatically better, safer future - and if we keep pushing, we could lower the amount of global warming we end up with even further. This is huge progress, and we need to celebrate it, even though the fight isn't over.

It's working. Keep going.

lmaooo

We love to see it

#oh my god#all of them???

Yes! All of them! It's not a defect, it's a design flaw! They made an accelerator pedal that can accidentally wedge itself down flat!

I know I'm reblogging this again but I have to add my own two sense on the matter. Most other auto manufacturers have had the stuck accelerator problem in the past due to floor mats and they have all learned a very important lesson: if BOTH accelerator and break are all the way down, apply the breaks and cut the throttle.

And even then they also have it so mashing the start/stop button or pressing and holding it kills the car

From that one report of the cyber truck crashing even when the brake was pressed, it seems like Tesla has not done their research and may not even have a contingency in the code for this. So it's a hardware AND software problem

From what I understand, it's not so much a design flaw as a production flaw; they made a change in manufacturing. They used a different chemical for something at some stage and that's what caused the pedal cover to slip off.

This was a failure of process.

I assure you, every major manufacturer in the world is either in the process of examining their processes to make sure that this particular issue isn't going to affect them, or has already done so. (I'm willing to bet that, in most cases, the investigation consisted of confirming that they don't use the chemical in question, along with some kind of "...because we're not idiots" notation in corporatese.)

What a lot of people don't appreciate is that corporate bureaucracy exists for a reason. Bureaucracy is the corporate equivalent of legislation-- every layer of it was born in red ink. As someone who has managed software deployments in production environment on systems used by millions of people each day, let me tell you, every step in that process is necessary. Oh, sure, it might seem like a lot of rigamarole for a minor change, but the problem is that people are notoriously bad at judging what a minor change is. I have personally been frustrated by a two-hour process (preceded by a week of paperwork, meetings, and approvals) to make a change in production that I knew full well would have no impact that, in actuality, took seven seconds and didn't require the traffic routing, load testing, etc. And I was right, it went without a hitch. Then two days later I spent fourteen hours on a call where half the system was down and it turned out that someone made a very similar change, and didn't say anything the entire time because he honestly didn't see how what he did caused what happened. "It shouldn't have affected anything!" If he'd followed process, there would have been no impact at all.

These tech bros think that they can revolutionize an industry by "streamlining the process" when they don't understand that the existing processes are the streamline. Sure, if they'd taken a week to test the impact of the change in process, it would have cost them a week, but it's gonna take more than a week to collect the information necessary to find out how much money this cost them. It's not just the cost of the recall and repair, it's the immediate impact this is going to have on sales, the long-term impact on consumer confidence in the brand, and, of course, a stock chart that looks like this:

That is a bad chart. And it's not going to get better.

Oh, look.

ok I know this isn't really the point but am I the only person who is absolutely gobsmacked that Penny Arcade somehow STILL EXISTS???

Ive noticed recently that my generation has... no concept of what the various economic classes actually are anymore. I talk to my friends and they genuinely say things like "at least i can afford a middle class lifestyle with this job because i dont need a roommate for my one bedroom apartment" and its like... oughh

You guys, middle class doesnt mean "a stable enough rented roof over your head," it means "a house you bought, a nice car or two, the ability to support a family, and take days off and vacations every year with income to spare for retirement savings and rainy days." If all you have is a rented apartment without a roommate and a used car, you're lower class. That's lower class.

And i cant help but wonder if this is why you get kids on tumblr lumping in doctors and actors into their "eat the rich" rhetoric: economic amnesia has blinded you to what the class divides actually are. The real middle class lifestyle has become so unattainable within a system that relies upon its existence that theyve convinced you that those who can still reach it are the elites while your extreme couponing to afford your groceries is the new normal.

Middle class is being able to live 3 months comfortably without a paying job.

I think it's also important to note that this is not just a generational thing. In the US, at least, there is a LONG-STANDING allergy to acknowledging class as a Thing, which has resulted in people thinking of themselves as "the middle class" from minimum-wage workers up through actual millionaires. For as long as I've been old enough to pay attention to politics, I've seen politicians talk about bringing back coal jobs or raising the minimum wage to help "the middle classes", and also repealing estate taxes that affect only the wealthy to help "the middle classes". And I can't help but think that erosion of a working class identity is very linked to the decades-long destruction of unions, for example.

Tl;dr - all of the above is correct but I don't think this is "young people not understanding"; I think it's systemic.

Using the bathroom in general is a human right and should be enshrined as such and I'm not joking. Too many groups of people are denied bathroom breaks or the use of bathrooms entirely--disabled people, blue-collar workers, children, homeless people, prisoners, students, the elderly. I'm surely missing other groups. Not using the bathroom when needed can cause serious, long-term damage, not to mention death. Free, clean, accessible bathrooms should be available everywhere. It's fucking cruel to deny someone the use of the bathroom, regardless of the reasoning. I'd rather every student in the world goof off and every homeless person make a mess and every worker "steal company time" than let one person suffer because they're denied the right to fucking pee in peace.

As someone who once had a school who tried to restrict bathroom breaks – due to apparent goofing off during classes – all it took for them to immediately change course was one super pissed off mom. Yes, my mom heard that, and charged right into the office to “have a word” with the principal, even going so far as asking to speak to the superintendent.

And let me tell you, it honestly takes that. People getting pissed and upset enough that people realize it’s not “just a small issue.” That it’s a human right and basic need that everyone should be able to do, with no stupid restrictions or paywall. If you think people shouldn’t be allowed to have free access and accommodations to bathrooms (making more bathrooms disabled friendly for example), then idk what to say besides please honestly rethink that mindset.

Everyone uses the bathroom, and everyone should have a bathroom to use.

the humble "like" is oft mocked despite what it does for us. "like, three people" is a vastly different statement from "three people". "and i was like 'what the fuck'" is vastly different from "and i said 'what the fuck'". i love you "like" and anyone who says you make people sound stupid will be killed on sight

— Joe Biden’s Last Campaign

There really are not words strong enough to describe the absolute lack of any logical foundation, or consideration for any person or any issue inherent in the idea of not voting because you “hate Joe Biden” or because you’ve suddenly become a one issue voter and haven’t bothered to develop a real understanding of the one issue that is allegedly animating you. 

This is a binary choice, one of these two candidates is going to win, one of them isn’t perfection, the other is a completely corrupt asshole who wants me to die, and since this is the queer trans disabled monsterfucker website, if you are reading this, he almost certainly wants you to die too.

Act like it.

https://fortune.com/europe/2024/04/23/spotify-earnings-q1-ceo-daniel-eklaying-off-1500-spotify-employees-negatively-affected-streaming-giants-operations/#

I've never had a job that wouldn't implode if we lost that much staff all at once. Those jobs existed for good reasons, I bet the people left are exhausted covering the gaps. Layoffs are so fucked up.

A real thing that happened is me as a teenager.

I had what turned out to be a dangerous walking pneumonia, for a week, but the manager at Burger King wouldn’t let me off.  My breathing was very loud and ragged.  I was coughing on and breathing on the food.

I wasn’t allowed to leave.  I was told if i called out, I was fired.

So Im shuffling around wheezing loudly swaying with my high fever as I work drive thru by myself, and a paramedic walked in to order dinner.

He goes ballistic, My friends.  He demands to see the Manager.  he chews him out at the top of his lungs so the whole restaurant can here.  Guys working the back came up to watch.  Customers staring and thinking hard about the infectious food they were eating.  Dude losing his shit about how infectious I was and all the people management had been endangering for days judging from my breathing and I needed to be home on antibiotics RIGHT NOW and the health Department was going to hear about this.

I went home.  i got the week off.  Didn’t even need a doctor’s note.

Getting friends management doesn’t know to do this WOULD WORK.

Same manager not letting me take my influenza home a year later  despite repeated vomiting?  Threw up in front of customers.  Customers demanded money back and started threatening the manager with lawsuits.

I got to go home and got time off until I stopped vomitting.

GO AHEAD and THROW UP in front of Customers.  THEY will Complain.

Don’t be shy.  

They are supposed to let you stay home when you are sick.  Stop protecting management. (Hiding how sick you are protects management).  They are abusing you.  Let them reap what they sow.

middle class america is forever in fear of the seal team 6 of rapist drug dealers murderers breaking into their house to get them specifically. what makes you so special?

addiction to true crime podcasts

Obsessed with them showing all of their security measures that could never be used against them ever at all

I hope someone who sees this video gets through every single one of her security measures to do nothing but put an elf on the shelf somewhere and then never return

I have so many questions.

In all seriousness this is a symptom of one of the most toxic elements of American culture, which is the belief that isolation is more likely to protect you from the danger of other people, than other people are to protect you from the danger of isolation.

Realistically, a medical emergency or house fire is far more likely to occur than being randomly murdered in your own house by a stranger, but this woman "protects" herself from the safety of living in community, thereby exposing herself to the danger of living in isolation.

I'm like, morbidly fascinated to observe how normal American women think it is to fear the entire world. I am American but it's still weird to me how every other woman has a deeply ingrained fear of going for a walk alone and expects me to as well.

I'm also really caught off guard when people say things like "Oh, there might be someone on drugs" about a poor or dilapidated area, as a reason it's dangerous. In my experience, the average American seems to have no idea what "drugs" are or do, only a vague impression that they are somewhat like rabies and cause people to become indiscriminately violent and dangerous towards everyone around them.

At my first college there was a restaurant downtown that everyone said was "a front for human trafficking." Even professors would say this. Despite the widespread nature of this rumor, it never seemed to occur to anyone that this information could be actionable or that any authority could be informed about the presence of a human trafficking ring. It was just a fact; human trafficking networks were an assumed part of the everyday world, something that had to be avoided like potholes in the road.

I think about these things a lot.

It is extremely beneficial for a number of industries, as well as certain politicians, for white people — and this is specific to white people — to believe that they are in life threatening danger at any given minute and it matters. It is critical to understand that this issue is extraordinarily racialized, and that the industries and politicians benefiting from making white people afraid are relying upon existing and worsening racial stratification in the US to fill their coffers, or provide them with power or both, and enjoying the knock on harms this does to the BIPOC, immigrant, unhoused and SUD communities adjacent to these needlessly terrified white folks.

77% of Americans believe that crime is increasing. While we don’t have a race breakdown of the numbers, we do have a political breakdown of the numbers, which is just as good, honestly. 92% of Republicans believe that crime is going up but only 58% of Democrats do.

In reality, every kind of crime has been decreasing for the last several years except auto theft. The murder rate fell between 2022 and 2023 at the steepest rate ever in history, and property crime is at its lowest rate since 1961. 

The most dangerous thing in the world to that woman in the video is the husband she locks herself in with every night.



Closing all your blinds and turning your lights off 24/7 like this is going to increase your chance of break-ins because there are a thousand times more people out there who want to break into your empty house and steal your TV, than people who want to assault a random stranger in their house

But to be fair those same people would probably be deterred by the door locks so it all evens out to a very expensive nothing I guess

it's the whistle that really cracks me up. like obviously this woman's attempting to be a Security Influencer, hence why she's dressed and staged everything so nicely, but like. what's that whistle gonna do. she's so incredibly in danger from the outside world that she has to hide herself away behind a dozen barricades, but apparently there's going to be helpful neighbors within earshot that will come running to help at the first toot of that whistle? what the fuck?

Documenting what is quite possibly the best exchange I have ever seen on this website.

He will not be exiled again

I enjoy all parts of this post. The trans leash, the confusion, the heartfelt display of affection we give to our pets. The biography, the history lesson, and the morality of keeping cats indoors are all bonuses.

Hey thats me again.

Anyway guess whos 18 now!!!

Frank

This post has EVERYTHING...

People who honestly think there shouldn’t be a proshot release of theater shows because then people wouldn’t go to the theater anymore are so fucking dumb holy shit how dumb do you have to be did people stop watching footbal games because it also airs on tv? did people stop going to concers because you could get the dvd? holy shit just let poor people have a taste of the thing too god damn it

I should add, as an opera fan, this is something opera got over long ago. I can access proshot recordings of practically every major opera production of the last 30 years, because most of them got official dvds. And that didn’t kill opera. Tickets for opera productions can often be gotten for cheap too. Operas, despite their reputation are actually really good about accessibility, at least in terms of cost.

But broadway musicals? The community that are mostly having this debate? My options are buying a ticket (for a large sum, plus a plane trip to New York), a sound-only official cast recording, a shaky low-fi bootleg video or a hollywood movie adaptation if I’m lucky. Tickets for musicals on broadway and the west end are often sold out and for large prices, and I doubt proshot recordings would put any major dent in that.

Also I can’t go into a crowded auditorium and probably won’t be safe to do so for years because people think Covid-19 is sooooo over

So it’d be nice to have a chance to experience a watered down version of shows ballets plays or etc. because I liked them and there’s so many I might not get to see

In addition to the price and location barrier, there’s also a time barrier with live theatre.

There are so many shows that I would HAPPILY pay to see if I could, but they ran before I was born or when I was a child/teen.

There are shows that I DID get the privilege of seeing live that I would love to see again, or share with loved ones, but I’ll never get to because they’re no longer running or touring.

Not only would pro-shot releases help people who can’t afford or access live shows, it would create an archive of these performances for present AND future audiences to experience over and over again (and probably generate broader interest in live revivals too).

This machine kills AI

just an fyi, those european countries this person is talking about are super capitalist. and while capitalism is terrible, wasteful, inefficient, exploitative, in need of dismantling, etc. even things like public healthcare and livable wages and vacation time can exist within capitalism if capitalism is properly regulated.

america just chose the route of not allowing for those things by deregulating and selling everything off to private capital. which, as a failed experiment in free market economics, should be a pretty obvious lesson to the rest of the world of what NOT to do.

hold on a second man…

Maybe this is the wrong platform to pose this question given the average tumblr user but

Is it just me or did our generation (those of is who are currently 20-30 ish) just not get the opportunity to be young in the 'standard' sense?

Like, everyone I talk to who's over 40 has all their wild stories about their teens and 20s, being young and dumb, and then I talk to my friends and coworkers and classmates, and we just... dont.

My mom tells stories of skipping school to sneak across the border and spend the day at a bar in Mexico. I was threatened with not being allowed to graduate because of senior ditch day. One of my friends had to go to his first hour class on senior ditch day because the teacher, who almost exclusively taught seniors, arranged a huge exam that day with no available makeup days, specifically to punish kids who took part in ditch day. Our wild and crazy ditch day was playing mini golf and then stopping for ice cream on our way back to one of our friends' houses to play cards against humanity.

Don't get me wrong, we had fun. But all of that, threats of not graduating, threats of failing classes over a single test, over some mini golf and ice cream?

Throughout high school and early in college, my friend group got kicked out of malls, stores, and even a parking lot just for being there wrong. Not being loud of disruptive. Not causing problems. Just being there too long, or without buying anything.

My mom graduated high school, after repeating her senior year, without a single grade above a D, and was offered a full ride scholarship to a state university to play on their women's football team. I had a 3.8 GPA, multiple extracurriculars, a summer job, and over 100 hours of volunteer work, and barely got into that same university, and then couldn't afford to go there anyway.

We've made getting into college so important and yet so difficult that kids are sacrificing their childhoods for it.

Then they become adults and it doesn't go away. Your employer/ potential employers are searching your social media and internet presence so you'd better hope no one has ever posted a picture of you at a party, or with alcohol, or wearing revealing clothes, or whatever else they've deemed unprofessional. And if you want to go out it's a 10 dollar cover and drinks are at least 8 dollars, and you need to tip if there's any kind of live entertainment, who can afford to do all that regularly?

My physical therapist, when I was 18, told me about his 21st birthday, how the last thing he remembers is people taking body shots off him. I spent my 21st birthday alone, was in bed by 10pm because I had to be at work the next morning. My boss had already told me that they knew it was my 21st, and if I called out, she'd write me up for improper use of sick leave because you're not allowed to use sick leave for a hangover. I don't know anyone whose 21st birthday was a big deal. No one went out and partied for it.

I dont really know where I'm going with all of this. I guess I just don't understand the point of it all. We spend our youth working hard to provide a future that we still can't afford. We have to be responsible and professional as teenagers. And we get nothing out of it. We can't afford life or friends or fun. At least our parents got to have fun being young and dumb, we just got groomed on kik.

So I'm not the only one noticing this. I wish I had an answer or at least something to say about it. But I dont. I'm just tired.

Original report (waybacked PDF) is from 2007. That's Gen Z kids.

When I, Gen-Xer, was about 12 - in my rural home, I had about a three-mile range. (Could've pushed it to more, but didn't want to walk that far.) In the city, it was about a mile. Not that anyone was checking; again, that was about the distance I wanted to walk, and besides, that covered all of "downtown."

My kids? Closer to that 300 yards limit at the same age. Not because I wanted to restrict them, but we live next to a freeway on-ramp and between two sets of train tracks... and there is absolutely nothing kid-friendly within a half-mile for them to visit.

I spent my 21st birthday bar-hopping. My kids spent their 21st birthdays at home with a nice meal. I don't think either of them wanted to go bar-hopping - but yeah, as a society, we've removed a LOT of teen-friendly options.

See also: End of Third Places, switch from video game arcades to home consoles (hey, then every kid has to buy their own copy--great for game-makers!), shutdown of malls or restrictions on youth at them, closure of public parks, reduced/removed after-school programs, etc. Plus the places that think it's illegal for a 12-year-old to walk to the corner store unsupervised.

I am, however, DELIGHTED to hear that the booze & other vices industries are panicking over Gen Z not going out to party. Like, you spent 30-odd years removing all the places and ways people can hang out together and have fun outside of someone's personal house, and... guess what, when people hit milestone events (graduation, milestone birthdays, job promotion, whatever), they don't immediately flock to the Party Zone that they have never been welcome at. How shocking.

It sucks that Gen Z does not get to party, does not have good celebration options. REALLY sucks that that's often because school or job has decided to tell them not to celebrate, rather than just not having places to go. I'm just not upset over party capitalism taking a hit.

fiery Thai dances.